Two canyons, West Canyon and Snow Canyon, begin side-by-side at the north gouging deeply into the sandstone of the Red Mountains, each canyon then running southward, slowly converging then finally meeting in the middle of the park. From there Snow Canyon continues south-by-southeastward as a single, larger canyon. Near the park's southern entrance, the canyon ends, its mouth opening out onto the Santa Clara bench near Ivins, Utah.

Red rock formations add to the beauty of the canyon.

A paved two-lane road (formerly SR-300) enters the park from Ivins on the south, winds up the canyon a ways, then climbs up the eastern edge to the bench above Snow Canyon, where the road joins State Route 18. Ancient lava flows spill over the eastern edges of Snow Canyon from above, where the road climbs out of the canyon.

The park boundaries extend northeastward, across State Route 18, to encompass two cinder cones along the western edge of Diamond Valley.

The highest point in the park, according to a U.S. Geological Survey topographical map, is a peak 5,024 feet (1,531 m) in elevation nearly due west of the southern cinder cone, standing above the eastern edge of the east fork of Snow Canyon.

Snow Canyon State Park is open all year round and contains 35 campsites for tents and RVs below 35 feet (11 m). The day-use fee is $10. Hikers and bikers may obtain annual passes for $30. The Johnson Canyon trail (to a large arch) below the toll gate at the south entrance to the park may be accessed without payment of fees, but is closed to hikers most of the year, to protect nesting bird populations. The Johnson Canyon trail is usually only open from about November 15 to March.

The climate is typical for a desert. Higher elevations tend to be dry and cooler. Lower elevations are also dry, but much warmer.

Summers are hot with low temperatures in the low 80 degrees Fahrenheit to high temperatures over 105 °F (41 °C). Winters can range from lows in the mid 20 degrees Fahrenheit to highs in the 60 degrees Fahrenheit ranges.

Whiptail Trail - 6 miles (9.7 km). Easy. Level with some slopes. Accessible to physically challenged. Tucked along the canyon bottom, this sinuous paved trail is suitable for hiking, jogging, biking and rollerblading.

Johnson Canyon - (Open November 15 to March 1 only) - 2 miles (3.2 km). Easy. Level with some rocky slopes and steps. Boasting the only riparian area in the park, this trail winds through lava flows and red rock to an arch spanning 200 feet (61 m).

Jenny's Canyon - (Closed March 31 to June 1) -One-half mile. Easy, level with few slopes and steps. Trail leads to a narrow, sculpted canyon then splits with rock stairsteps to offer a scenic overlook.

Sand Dunes - One-half mile. Easy. Deep sand with some slopes. Trail leads to a large expanse of red sand that is an excellent play area for children of all ages.

Butterfly Trail - 2 miles (3.2 km). Moderate. Some steep slopes, steps and uneven surfaces. Winding along the west side of Petrified Dunes, this trail leads to West Canyon Overlook and lava tubes.

White Rocks Trail/Lava Flow Overlook - 4 miles (6.4 km). Moderate. Some rocky slopes, uneven surfaces. Passing through lava flows, juniper stands and views of West Canyon, trail leads to a natural amphitheater set in white sandstone. Or reach the amphitheater on a 1-mile (1.6 km) trail located one-half mile north of State Route 18 junction.

1.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time

2.
Washington County, Utah
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Washington County is a county located in the U. S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 census, the population was 138,115 and its county seat and largest city is St. George. The county was created in 1852 and organized in 1856 and it was named for the first President of the United States, George Washington. Washington County experienced the fifth highest job-growth rate in the United States at one point, Washington County comprises the St. George, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area. The earliest settlement was Fort Harmony in 1852, Santa Clara was established in 1854 as a mission to the natives that lived on the Santa Clara River. Hamblin and Pinto were settled along the Los Angeles - Salt Lake Road in 1856, next came the settlements established as colonies to grow cotton, before the beginning of the American Civil War. They were located along the Virgin River, in the warmer climate below the Great Basin, the first were Virgin and Washington in 1857. Heberville, Pintura and Toquerville followed in 1858, Grafton, Harrisburg, adventure in 1860, and Duncans Retreat, Northrop, Shonesburg and St. George in 1861. Shoal Creek later called Hebron, was a community established in 1862 in the west of the county. Leeds was settled in 1867, and Silver Reef was a mining town begun in 1875 and abandoned by 1891 due to the collapse in silver prices. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 2,430 square miles. The elevation varies from 2,178 to 10,365 feet in elevation, the lowest point in the state of Utah is located in the Beaver Dam Wash in Washington County, where it flows out of Utah and into Arizona. Washington County is made up of three geographic areas, the Colorado Plateau in the east-northeast, the Great Basin in the northwest. Most of the population is centered in the middle-south of the county near the border with Arizona, most national shopping, dining, and hospitality chains are located here, along with several local businesses. The climate of this section of the county is the driest, the terrain is also among the lowest in Washington County, making for a particularly hot and dry climate when compared to the rest of the county. Most homes are located in subdivisions, and a large urban sprawl exists. In Downtown St. George, several restaurants and stores call this area home. To combat the sprawl, growth and promotion is being projected inward to the area of the St. George

3.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean

4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

5.
State park
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State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use state as a political subdivision. State parks are established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest. There are state parks under the administration of the government of each U. S. state, some of the Mexican states, the term is also used in the Australian state of Victoria. The equivalent term used in Canada, Argentina, South Africa, similar systems of local government maintained parks exist in other countries, but the terminology varies. State parks are thus similar to parks, but under state rather than federal administration. Similarly, local government entities below state level may maintain parks, in general, state parks are smaller than national parks, with a few exceptions such as the Adirondack Park in New York and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California. As of 2014, there were 10,234 state park units in the United States, there are some 739 million annual visits to the countrys state parks. The NASPD further counts over 43,000 miles of trail,217,367 campsites, many states include designations beyond state park in their state parks systems. Other designations might be state recreation areas, state beaches, some state park systems include long-distance trails and historic sites. The title of oldest state park in the United States is claimed by Niagara Falls State Park in New York, however several public parks previously or currently maintained at the state level pre-date it. Indian Springs State Park has been operated continuously by the state of Georgia as a park since 1825. In 1864 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove were ceded by the government to California until Yosemite National Park was proclaimed in 1890. In 1878 Wisconsin set aside a vast swath of its forests as The State Park but, needing money. The first state park with the designation of state park was Mackinac Island State Park in 1895, list of U. S. state parks National Association of State Park Directors Wilderness preservation systems in the United States Ahlgren, Carol. The Civilian Conservation Corps and Wisconsin State Park Development, the State Park Movement in America, A Critical Review excerpt and text search Larson, Zeb. Silver Falls State Park and the Early Environmental Movement, oregon Historical Quarterly 112#1 pp, 34-57 in JSTOR Newton, Norman T. When Forests Trumped Parks, The Maryland Experience, 1906-1950, Maryland Historical Magazine 101#2 pp, 203-224

6.
Navajo Sandstone
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Navajo Sandstone frequently overlies and interfingers with the Kayenta Formation of the Glen Canyon Group. Together, these formations can result in immense vertical cliffs of up to 2,200 feet, atop the cliffs, Navajo Sandstone often appears as massive rounded domes and bluffs that are generally white in color. Navajo Sandstone frequently occurs as spectacular cliffs, cuestas, domes and it can be distinguished from adjacent Jurassic sandstones by its white to light pink color, meter-scale cross-bedding, and distinctive rounded weathering. The wide range of colors exhibited by the Navajo Sandstone reflect a history of alteration by groundwater and other subsurface fluids over the last 190 million years. The iron in these strata originally arrived via the erosion of iron-bearing silicate minerals, initially, this iron accumulated as iron-oxide coatings, which formed slowly after the sand had been deposited. Later, after having been buried, reducing fluids composed of water. The dissolution of the iron coatings by the reducing fluids bleached large volumes of the Navajo Sandstone a brilliant white, reducing fluids transported the iron in solution until they mixed with oxidizing groundwater. Where the oxidizing and reducing fluids mixed, the iron precipitated within the Navajo Sandstone, the precipitation of iron oxides also formed laminea, corrugated layers, columns, and pipes of ironstone within the Navajo Sandstone. The age of the Navajo Sandstone is somewhat controversial and it may originate from the Late Triassic but is at least as young as the Early Jurassic stages Pliensbachian and Toarcian. There is no type locality of the name and it was simply named for the Navajo Country of the southwestern United States. The two major subunits of the Navajo are the Lamb Point Tongue and the Shurtz Sandstone Tongue, the Navajo Sandstone was originally named as the uppermost formation of the La Plata Group by Gregory and Stone in 1917. Baker reassigned it as the formation of Glen Canyon Group in 1936. Its age was modified by Lewis and others in 1961, the name was originally not used in northwest Colorado and northeast Utah, where the name Glen Canyon Sandstone was preferred. Its age was modified again by Padian in 1989, the sandstone was deposited in an arid erg on the Western portion of the Supercontinent Pangaea. This region was affected by monsoons that came about each winter when cooler winds. Theropod tracks are located in Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. Ornithischian tracks located in Arizona, USA, the Navajo Sandstone is also well known among rockhounds for its hundreds of thousands of iron oxide concretions. They are believed to represent an extension of Hopi Native American traditions regarding ancestor worship, informally, they are called Moqui marbles after the local proposed Moqui Native American tribe

7.
Ivins, Utah
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Ivins /ˈaɪvᵻnz/ is a city in Washington County, Utah, United States and is a part of the St. George Metropolitan Area as a suburb or bedroom community. The population was 6,753 at the 2010 census, although Ivins was listed as a town in the 2000 census, it became a city in 1998. Prior to the arrival of Mormon settlers, this area was inhabited for thousands of years by the Paiute people, the Shivwits Band of Paiutes reservation is located immediately west of Ivins City. Ivins was born out of the dream of several men to bring water to the Santa Clara bench. This was not easy to accomplish, an eight-mile canal had to be built from the Santa Clara creek near the Shem smelter to the bench. This was not an undertaking, the route took them over steep mountain sides. Work began in 1911 and the canal was completed in 1914, Ivins Reservoir was built to store the water in 1918. Civil engineers, Leo A. Snow and Clarence S. Jarvis first conceived the idea in 1909, the first couple to move onto the project site were Mr. and Mrs. Alden Gray who arrived there 15 January 1922. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Tobler came a week later, Mr and Mrs. Samuel Gubler came in the spring, then Mr. and Mrs. Clement Gubler, Mr. and Mrs. Edward R. Frei, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Leo F. Reber, and Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Ence. In 1924 Mr. and Mrs. Milo Ence, Mr. and Mrs. Rulon Stucki, Mr. and Mrs. Martin J. Gubler, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Reber, and Mr. and Mrs. Loren Stucki joined the group. The irrigation company offered a lot to the first ten families to move to the new town and these families were all young and willing to live in humble circumstances and work hard to make this new town a reality. Their children had to ride a horse to Santa Clara to school each day, when residents decided they wanted a different name for their town than Santa Clara Bench, they chose Ivins after the Mormon Apostle Anthony W. Ivins. He was asked and didnt object as long as they spelled it right and he then donated $100 toward a chapel and later sent a bell for it. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 10.3 square miles. Ivins is near Tuacahn and Snow Canyon State Park which draw many people to the area, there are many new planned developments near or in Ivins, joining the earlier Kayenta and Padre Canyon developments. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Ivins has a semi-arid climate, as of the census of 2000, there were 4,450 people,1,435 households, and 1,234 families residing in the town. The population density was 436.3 people per square mile, there were 1,598 housing units at an average density of 156.7 per square mile

8.
St. George, Utah
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St. George is a city located in the southwestern part of the U. S. state of Utah on the Utah-Arizona border, near the tri-state junction of Utah, Nevada and Arizona. It is the county seat of Washington County, Utah and is the city of the St. George Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is 118 miles northeast of Las Vegas and 300 miles south-southwest of Salt Lake City on Interstate 15, the city is named after George A. Smith, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Apostle. As of the 2015 U. S Census estimates, St. George had a population of 80,202, St. George is the seventh-largest city in Utah and the most populous city in the state outside of the Wasatch Front. Today however, growth trends have once again increased at a steady pace, prior to the arrival of Europeans, the St. George area was inhabited by the Virgin River Anasazi and later by the Paiute tribe. The first Europeans in the area were part of the Dominguez–Escalante Expedition in 1776, at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Brigham Young organized the settlement of what is now Washington County, Utah. Fearing that the war would take away the cotton supply, he plans for raising enough in this southwestern country to supply the needs of his people. Enough favorable reports had come to him from this warm region below the rim of the Great Basin, at the general church conference in Salt Lake City on October 6th,1861, about three hundred families were called to the Dixie mission to promote the cotton industry. The families were selected so as to ensure the communities the right number of farmers, masons, blacksmiths, businessmen, educators, carpenters, the settlement was named after George A. Smith, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In April 1877, the LDS Church completed the St George and it is the Churchs third temple, and it is the longest continually operating LDS temple in southern Utah, and in the world. One person was killed and twenty-eight homes were destroyed by the raging Santa Clara River, St. George received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas in the early 1950s. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through the St. George and southern Utah area. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 64.9 square miles. St. George lies in a valley with most of the city lying below 3,000 feet. Wildlife and vegetation are typical of the Mojave Desert in which it lies and it is situated near a unique geological transition zone where the Mojave, Colorado Plateau and Great Basin all converge. The Virgin and Santa Clara Rivers flow through the valley and converge near the base of Webb Hill. The urban area is studded by numerous hills, mesas, waterways and habitat reserves, creating natural boundaries or dividers of sections, neighborhoods and communities within the city. Today, the city appears much differently than in its days in history when the town was tucked below the red sandstone bluffs between the two black volcanic ridges

9.
Lava tube
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A lava tube is a natural conduit formed by flowing lava which moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. Tubes can be actively draining lava from a volcano during an eruption, or can be extinct, meaning the flow has ceased. Lava tubes are a type of cave formed when an active low-viscosity lava flow develops a continuous and hard crust. Tubes form in one of two ways, by the crusting over of lava channels, and from pāhoehoe flows where the lava is moving under the surface, Lava usually leaves the point of eruption in channels. These channels tend to very hot as their surroundings cool. This means they slowly develop walls around them as the lava cools and/or as the channel melts its way deeper. These channels can get enough to crust over, forming an insulating tube that keeps the lava molten. These types of lava tubes tend to be closer to the eruption point. Farther away from the point, lava can flow in an unchanneled, fanlike manner as it leaves its source. Called pāhoehoe flows, these areas of surface-moving lava cool, forming either a smooth or rough, the lava continues to flow this way until it begins to block its source. At this point, the lava is still hot enough to break out at a point. Lava flows from the source to this breakout point as the surrounding lava of the pāhoehoe flow cools. This forms a channel that becomes a lava tube. A broad lava-flow field often consists of a lava tube. When the supply of lava stops at the end of an eruption or lava is diverted elsewhere, lava in the system drains downslope. Lava tubes generally have pāhoehoe floors, although this may often be covered in breakdown from the ceiling. A variety of speleothems may be found in lava tubes including a variety of stalactite forms generally known as lavacicles, lavacicles are the most common of lava tube speleothems. Drip stalagmites may form under tubular lava stalactites, and the latter may grade into a known as a tubular lava helictite

10.
Lava
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Lava is the molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption. The resulting rock after solidification and cooling is called lava. The molten rock is formed in the interior of planets, including Earth. The source of the heat melts the rock within the earth is geothermal energy. When first erupted from a vent, lava is a liquid usually at temperatures from 700 to 1,200 °C. A lava flow is an outpouring of lava, which is created during a non-explosive effusive eruption. When it has stopped moving, lava solidifies to form igneous rock, the term lava flow is commonly shortened to lava. Although lava can be up to 100,000 times more viscous than water, lava can flow great distances before cooling and solidifying because of its thixotropic, explosive eruptions produce a mixture of volcanic ash and other fragments called tephra, rather than lava flows. The word lava comes from Italian, and is derived from the Latin word labes which means a fall or slide. The first use in connection with extruded magma was apparently in an account written by Francesco Serao on the eruption of Vesuvius between May 14 and June 4,1737. Serao described a flow of lava as an analogy to the flow of water. The composition of almost all lava of the Earths crust is dominated by silicate minerals, mostly feldspars, olivine, pyroxenes, amphiboles, micas, igneous rocks, which form lava flows when erupted, can be classified into three chemical types, felsic, intermediate, and mafic. These classes are primarily chemical, however, the chemistry of lava also tends to correlate with the temperature, its viscosity. Felsic or silicic lavas such as rhyolite and dacite typically form lava spines, most silicic lava flows are extremely viscous, and typically fragment as they extrude, producing blocky autobreccias. Felsic magmas can erupt at temperatures as low as 650 to 750 °C, unusually hot rhyolite lavas, however, may flow for distances of many tens of kilometres, such as in the Snake River Plain of the northwestern United States. Intermediate or andesitic lavas are lower in aluminium and silica, and usually somewhat richer in magnesium, intermediate lavas form andesite domes and block lavas, and may occur on steep composite volcanoes, such as in the Andes. Poorer in aluminium and silica than felsic lavas, and also commonly hotter, greater temperatures tend to destroy polymerized bonds within the magma, promoting more fluid behaviour and also a greater tendency to form phenocrysts. Higher iron and magnesium tends to manifest as a darker groundmass, mafic or basaltic lavas are typified by their high ferromagnesian content, and generally erupt at temperatures in excess of 950 °C

11.
Dune
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In physical geography, a dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or the flow of water. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, formed by interaction with the flow of air or water, most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter slip face in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is called a slack, a dune field is an area covered by extensive sand dunes. Dunes occur, for example, in deserts and along some coasts. Some coastal areas have one or more sets of dunes running parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach, in most cases, the dunes are important in protecting the land against potential ravages by storm waves from the sea. Although the most widely distributed dunes are those associated with coastal regions, Dunes can form under the action of water flow, and on sand or gravel beds of rivers, estuaries and the sea-bed. The modern word dune came into English from French c,1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne. Crescent-shaped mounds are generally wider than they are long, the slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction, some types of crescentic dunes move more quickly over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. A group of dunes moved more than 100 metres per year between 1954 and 1959 in Chinas Ningxia Province, and similar speeds have been recorded in the Western Desert of Egypt. The largest crescentic dunes on Earth, with mean crest-to-crest widths of more than three kilometres, are in Chinas Taklamakan Desert. They may be composed of clay, silt, sand, or gypsum, eroded from the floor or shore, transported up the concave side of the dune. Examples in Australia are up to 6.5 km long,1 km wide and they also occur in southern and West Africa, and in parts of the western United States, especially Texas. Straight or slightly sinuous sand ridges typically much longer than they are wide are known as linear dunes and they may be more than 160 kilometres long. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes, many form in bidirectional wind regimes. The long axes of these dunes extend in the resultant direction of sand movement, linear loess hills known as pahas are superficially similar. These hills appear to have formed during the last ice age under permafrost conditions dominated by sparse tundra vegetation. Radially symmetrical, star dunes are pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the center of the mound

12.
Mormons
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After Smiths death in 1844, the Mormons followed Brigham Young to what would become the Utah Territory. Today, most Mormons are understood to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing. The center of Mormon cultural influence is in Utah, and North America has more Mormons than any other continent, Mormons have developed a strong sense of communality that stems from their doctrine and history. Mormons dedicate large amounts of time and resources to serving in their church, Mormons have a health code which eschews alcoholic beverages, tobacco, coffee, tea, and other addictive substances. They tend to be very family-oriented, and have connections across generations and with extended family. Mormons also have a law of chastity, requiring abstention from sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage. Mormons self-identify as Christian, although some non-Mormons consider Mormons non-Christian, Mormons believe in the Bible, as well as other books of scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. They have a view of cosmology, and believe that all people are spirit-children of God. Mormons believe that returning to God requires following the example of Jesus Christ and they believe that Christs church was restored through Joseph Smith and is guided by living prophets and apostles. Central to Mormon faith is the belief that God speaks to his children, due to their high birth and conversion rates, the Mormon population has grown significantly in recent decades rising from around three million in 1970 to over 15 million in 2015. The term Mormons has been embraced by most adherents of Mormonism, most notably Mormon fundamentalists, while other Latter Day Saint denominations, both LDS Church members and members of fundamentalist groups commonly use the word Mormon in reference to themselves. The LDS Church, however, disagrees with this self-characterization, Church leaders also encourage members to use the churchs full name to emphasize its focus on Jesus Christ. Today, polygamy is practiced within Mormonism only by people that have broken with the LDS Church, the history of the Mormons has shaped them into a people with a strong sense of unity and communality. From the start, Mormons have tried to establish what they call Zion, in the first period, Smith had tried literally to build a city called Zion, in which converts could gather. During the pioneer era, Zion became a landscape of villages in Utah, in modern times, Zion is still an ideal, though Mormons gather together in their individual congregations rather than a central geographic location. Mormons trace their origins to the visions that Joseph Smith reported having in the early 1820s while living in upstate New York, in 1823, Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people. Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon, named after Mormon, on April 6,1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ. The early church grew westward as Smith sent missionaries to proselytize, in 1833, Missouri settlers, alarmed by the rapid influx of Mormons, expelled them from Jackson County into the nearby Clay County, where local residents were more welcoming